Ask a child, it will tell you that being an adult is much easier thus it is the least difficult thing in the world to tell the others what to do. A parent's answer would be: "I wish I could be a child again. I have never been so carefree as I was in my childhood."
Why are these answers so obvious? Why do children want to become adults and what changes, that as soon as they are grown-ups they would prefer to turn the time back?
Maybe we can answer these questions by having a closer look at childhood, parenthood and their relation to each other.
In my opinion childhood can be devided into three main periods. Children under the age of 13-14 accept everything they are told by their parents. Little ones take their parents' behaviour as an example to be followed. Everything which is said to be nice, ugly, useful or useless by a mother is nice, ugly, useful or useless in her child's eyes. This is very natural and so are the changes that occur around the age of 14. This is the time when teenagers start to observe everything with critical eyes and do not take everything for granted. They start to deny things said or done by their parents. They rebel and the main target of their rebellion is the parent whose only aim is to educate. Children want to break down the borders set up by the adults, they long for more freedom to be able to act the way they like. Parents become enemies in their eyes as in many cases a mother's and her daughter's opinions, interests are in contradiction with each other. (outward appearance, going out in the evenings...etc).
Another interesting change occurs in connection with children's ideals. While in the first period parents are the only examples to be followed in the second period teenagers gradually turn away from the ancestors and look for ideals among older friends, famous personalities like pop stars, actors, politicians. This way stimulis coming from outside of the family obtains more significance in the child's education.
The third period starts when the time of unsatisfaction is over. Children are more or less capable of true judgement. They form their own opinion about their education analysing the parents' "work". They decide which of the acquired values are worth maintaining and which not. This way children also form their own ideal way of bringing up a child. Getting closer to adulthood they realize some of the difficulties that grown-ups face.
Here I come back to the main question and the answers I wrote above.
Children of the first two periods (mainly of the second) would like to become adults thus they can gain independence and power. With these two words we can describe what being adult means for them. It happens only later that a child discovers it is something more than having power over the children - it is responsibility also. A mother or a father is responsible for a minor (or more) from the moment a new life (springing from them) appears on the earth . This means they got the status of a parent. They have the possibility moreover the duty to form a new individual. The child is something like a piece of clay which the parents have to work on. This process is either conscious or not.
Behind a conscious education we can observe a kind of analysing attitude with which the future parent approaches the education he gained. The acquired values get great stress in this case thus these constitute the basis of forming a new parental conduct. Certain patterns considered to be useful will be elements of his attitude, others will be neglected.
Everything we experience during our childhood is going to have a great effect on our parential life. This explains the responsibility parents have to take on.
There are many negative and positive values that can be or should be assured in educating a child. These values determine the character of the individual. It is quite obvious that negative values will result in negative conduct and it is the same with the positive ones.
The problem is that for different people the appreciation of values is not the same. Certain values are misinterpreted and ill-used and these are reflected in children's education as well.
Our generation is often condemned, the youth of today is accused of having no real values. Is it only our fault?
I wonder what the former generation would do differently if they had the chance to regain their childhood.
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